[p2p-research] Information sector: a qualitatively different mode of production?

[Roberto Verzola]

> I think that almost all important fruit trees known to the human kind
> are results of intergenerational efforts of selective breeding,
>   

We were not talking about selective breeding. Almost by definition, it 
involves human intervention.

I was saying that a fruit tree does not need human care to bear fruit -- 
the fruit trees that I grew up with anyway, in both urban and rural 
areas of the Philippines. We have a mango tree right in our small 
backyard that shades part of our roof. And it just bears fruit, and 
several months a year, we enjoy an abundance of mangoes, just from a 
single tree. In my province north of the Philippines which I used to 
visit often in my youth, fruit trees grew even in wild areas. Almost by 
definition too, and certainly from my own experience, fruit trees bear 
fruits, which have seeds that can become fruit trees themselves. When 
these drop to the ground (or we who ate them leave seeds around), many 
germinate and some grow to become trees themselves, which in time will 
also bear fruits. Without human intervention. Some people may pamper 
their trees, but I'm sure the trees would bear fruit anyway without the 
pampering. That's why we call them fruit trees.

If it is true, as you say, that fruit trees in your country won't bear 
fruits unless you took care of them, then I'm sorry for your country. 
But I still find it hard to believe that if, hypothetically, an entire 
U.K. village were abandoned by people, the fruit trees there will stop 
bearing fruits for lack of human care.

My thesis about abundance in agriculture is premised on my observation, 
which I believe is true, that all species have the inherent urge (and 
capability) to reproduce their own kind -- without human intervention. I 
am willing to concede that a handful food crops might be exceptions. But 
only a handful. And if you are right, I am also willing to concede that 
fruit trees in the U.K. are different. ;-)

> transporting and sustained care. Even tribal people in a rain forest,
> even though it is difficult to see, often intervene into the forest,
> aiding some plants, freeing up space for them to grow better, offering
> them sacrifices.
>   
If these tribals you refer to left the forest, I am quite confident the 
fruit trees will continue bearing fruits as usual.

> I think that topsoil needs human care to be lush and fat and in
> continuous good condition for trees to bear nice fruit.
>   
Well, on this list, that is a very unusual claim. I can imagine 
agrochemical firms making such a false claim, to sell their products. In 
general, unless you are starting with a desert in the first place, if 
you leave the land alone, a succession of plant types will grow until it 
reaches some kind of a stable ecosystem. Here, that will probably be a 
tropical forest of some kind. Even in the U.K., I'm sure you'd end up 
with some kind of a plant community. And that process of succession will 
build up the top soil. It is soil biota that make soils fertile -- 
insects, arthropods, earthworks, bacteria, fungi and various other 
decomposers. They break down and decompose organic matter, turning it 
into humus. They have been doing so before humans walked the Earth. They 
are still doing so today. But if you are right in the case of the U.K., 
then I'd even be sorrier for your country, You're in a really bad 
situation there, mate.

On second thought. The U.K. has many permaculturists, and the essence of 
permaculture is to create an artificial forest of food and cash crops, 
following the ideal forest that maintains and regenerates itself with 
little or no human intervention, except to harvest the products. This 
tells me even U.K. fruit trees can bear fruits and U.K. soils can stay 
fertile without hard labor. ;-)

> Unless we disconnect ourselves from the past and the future, and
> disregard wider social relations in favour of an objective view of
> separate objects in nature and laboratories, the qualitative differences
> between agricultural, industrial (those have merged in the era where
> they have been vuiewed in that manner) and digital production (which is
> very industrial) is not something that strikes me as of primary importance.
>   
Well, that's the heart of our debate then. The above was just banter.

I assert that the differences between the agricultural, industrial and 
information modes are of primary importance. These differences arise 
from the very nature of the goods involved in each mode, and the 
differences propagate to the level of social relations, including the 
thinking of people involved in the production of such goods.

If one's family is hungry and one has a loaf of bread, it is quite hard 
to share that bread with another family, because you lose what you 
share. But if you have a copy of a song, you can let another person make 
a copy, without foregoing your own enjoyment of the song. The very 
nature of the intangible good is in harmony with the social relation of 
sharing. While the rivalrous nature of tangible goods makes sharing 
harder, there are still situations that can push people to share 
material goods; for instance, if the means of producing them requires 
the cooperation of several or many people, then sharing also becomes a 
logical option.

In short, you cannot ignore the nature of the different goods themselves 
(living, non-living material, non-material) when considering what kind 
of social relations are appropriate for particular goods.

It can even affect thinking (values, even ideology, if you will), not 
just social relations. To give one example: when working with living 
organisms, the role of the human is secondary (the human is *not* 
essential for the soil to become fertile or for trees to bear fruits). 
Every organism has the urge and the capability to reproduce its own 
kind. The farmer "helps" the process, and watch out for things that can 
disrupt the process, but the process has its own internal logic, its own 
pace, that the farmer has to respect. On the other hand, in an 
industrial process, dead matter that is the raw material will not 
transform itself into a finished product, without the intervention of 
human labor (aided by machines). The human is central to the process of 
turning the dead raw material into a finished product. This is not a 
secondary but the principal role. This difference is bound to result in 
real differences in values (and ideology) between the farmer and the 
worker. The farmer "takes care" of plants and animals. The worker 
"cuts", "hammers", "melts", "welds", etc. the dead raw material to shape 
it into a finished product. How very different actions, and therefore 
very different modes of thinking too. Where workers are a part of a 
factory system based on machinery, then the worker becomes an extension 
-- a cog -- of industrial machinery. Everyone has to march to exactly 
the same tempo, the tempo set by the machines. This is where the much 
vaunted discipline of the industrial proletariat comes from. The mode of 
production itself organizes them and forces them to work in lock-step 
with each other (actually with the machine). In contrast, farmers have 
to adjust to the tempo of the various plants and animals they work with, 
Such tempo are usually slow enough, that farmers have to wait for these 
processes to take their course, while workers in general have to catch 
up with the tempo set by the machine. These very different modes of 
social existence are bound to result in very different patterns of 
thinking among farmers and workers. We'd need to do a similar analysis 
in the case of information workers.

I have already pointed out that the non-rivalrous nature of intangible 
goods leads to certain unique patterns of thought about these goods. For 
one thing, social relations such as sharing are  very much in harmony 
with the nature of information goods. With material goods, living or 
non-living, it depends.

The point is you cannot ignore the nature of the different types of 
goods, because their nature often determines or significantly influences 
the way the goods can be produced and the social relations that arise 
out of such production modes.

So, in fact, sharing as a social relation can arise from several 
distinct origins: 1) the nature of the good to be shared itself 
encourages sharing, as in the case of information goods; 2) if the 
method of producing the good involves many cooperating individuals, 
sharing of the final product among these individuals is also a natural 
option; and 3) when you enjoy abundance (the tree in your backyard bears 
more fruits than you can consume), you might also be encouraged to share 
with your neighbors.

Cheers,

Roberto Verzola